It's difficult to visualise, I may do it or I may not, lol. Have you got a vid or gif showing it? (Actually that could be something to add to one of your MT stickies, I don't remember seeing anything on it in there.)
I cant really find a good gif of someone doing it, but you can see the idea in the second kick he launches- hes driving his foot into the ground for the second kick. imagine that he did that using his first kick
Mmmmm doesn't look like he's actually slamming his foot down on the ground. Are you sure about this? In taekwondo you can judge a good fighter based on how lightly he can put his foot back down on the ground after a kick yet regain his center of balance to prepare immediately for the next kick. It would seem counterintuitive to slam your foot to the ground because doing so would cause you to delay before you could bring your next kick up. But then the attacker in that clip of yours is kicking pretty slowly so maybe he is indeed slamming his foot on the ground...
So do you mean the kicking leg is being driven into the ground, or the non-kicking leg? Sorry, I'm a bit slow on the uptake tonight.
that gif is slowed down for whatever reason (i have the video of that fight and buakaw has INCREDIBLY fast kicks) and like i said it isnt a great example. I guess because I know what im looking for I can see it easier but watch his foot closely, he quite clearly hits down with it and then springs back up. i forgot to mention you dont slam your whole foot only the ball of your foot. this is why its important to have strong calves. ill try and find a gif of someone using the push step more clearly but i dont know how tm ake a gif from a video edit- the kicking leg
I think I get it now. It's not the slamming of the foot that produces the power alone, but the timing of when you start your next kick. When you slam your foot down and push off, your kick will be faster, since your leg was already in motion. Try it. Since your leg is already moving, it doesn't have to accelerate as much.
Aaaaaaaaaaaahh, I see now. The name is kind of confusing, as there isn't really any "stepping" involved, your just springing the leg straight back up. Thanks for that.
I've never heard the set up for a second kick used that way before Ikken; but if we look at the principle of it, TKD uses a similar idea with it's double kicks. Imagine hitting on one side and using the recoil from the body hitting back to help a person tourque their hips around for another kick on the other side. Very similar ideas. I myself always instruct my students to get their foot back down to the floor as soon as possible so that they are 1) Stable after a kick to maintain good posture and balance 2) So that they can either move in or away quickly 3) So they can throw a follow kick. Although I don't use the terminology that you do, I would say we are doing very similar things. Nice GIF BTW.
Well going back to the subject if a person who is bigger than you can kick faster/harder/stronger. My instructor who is quite short, is actually my height (1. 65m), can kick fast and hard as hell. He is athletic and all that, but still he hasn't the body mass of a taller person. So I would say it is technique. That's the reason why a black belt that is a short person can KO a yellow belt that doubles him or her in height. ... That thing that Ikkens says about tapping the floor, happens all the time in TKD. We do that to regain balance after a kick and then throw some more. I don't do any of those kicks that are like two kicks in one. One kick and the floor goes down to regain balance, so there is not that matrix thing.
Yeh, its not the most used kick. Mostly because the judges are very cheap when awarding points, and rarely do you get a point for push kicks.
We use both. Didnt know which one you were talking about. Thats how we get our double roundhouse kicks to the head.
I say the physics are worth considering. E=mc2 So the more mass you have the less speed you require to generate the same force. It is probably true that it's easier to get a lighter leg moving faster than a heavy, here's the catch though:- The principles applied are rather similar to that of car engines. If you were to try and put fat onto your legs you would be at a disadvantage, they would be slower and the mass wouldn't help you, you'd end up not having the acceleration to create any force and all your kicks would end up like push kicks. The problem is that as martial artists we tend to try and build muscle. Now here's where the comparison to car engines comes in. Bigger more powerful engines are heavier than lighter more frugal engines. However how many cars do you know that are stonkingly fast but have tiny engines? There comes a point where to get more energy, you have to go heavier - when you do that you have to go heavy enough to allow you generate the power to beat the disadvantage of the weight you added. Erm, sorry if that's hard to understand, kind of a circular statement, but I couldn't think of a better way to word it. Now if you look at some of the fastest road cars are in the world, I'm talking acceleration wise :- Ultima GTR Radical SR3 Turbo Dauer 962 LM Ariel Atom 2 Caterham R500 Superlight The thing that makes these cars able to accelerate so fast is good gearing and traction and Good "Weight to Power ratio. The Radical SR3 Turbo is 619 bhp/ton. The Ultima GTR can be up to 720 BHP but weighs little over a ton, the Dauer 962 LM is 720 BHP but weighs little over a ton. Now what this equates to as a martial artist trying to improve the amount of physical energy they can generate using kicks is a need to gain weight efficiently. Bruce Lee was considered a powerful kicker, but he was very light and very muscley. His diet was high in protein, low in carbohydrates and not high in fat. The result of this is a serious strain on the body, but an extreme weight to power ratio.
On a small tangent, I think that's a problem with TKD, the majority of people don't see things in the Olympics, so they assume that we don't train it. We train push steps for double kicks, otherwise I'm doing it wrong :S Back to the point, I s'pose that a heavier leg does have the power to kick harder
There's a lot of things that ARE in the Olympics that people just don't notice, or worse yet some people don't even watch the Olympics and still make claims about what is and is not in Olympic style sparring. Some people watch maybe one or two fights in the Olympic Games, or maybe just highlights, and assume that it doesn't happen, which is kinda silly. If you watch high level competitions consistently, including Team Trials, Worlds, etc. etc., you'll see anything and everything that you've trained for, including jumping/flying side kick at the start of a match!!
